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Special Appeal from the *American Council for Kosovo(www.savekosovo.org)

“We are all expecting something difficult and horrible. Our message to you, all Serbs in Kosovo, is to remain in your homes and around your monasteries, regardless of what God allows or our enemies do.” Bishop Artemije of Ras and Prizren, archpastor of Orthodox Christians in Kosovo.The American Council for Kosovo today issued this Special Appeal to all Americans and citizens of other countries in the aftermath of the illegal and void unilateral “declaration of independence” by Albanian Muslims in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija and their recognition by some countries, led, regrettably, by the United States:The struggle for the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija has entered a new phase, one likely to extend far into the future. With an illegal and void "declaration" by Kosovo's UN-supervised Albanian Muslim administration, which is dominated by the criminal leadership of a terrorist organization, the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)," followed by recognition of Kosovo's independence by a number of countries -- shamefully, led by the United States -- an unprecedented violation of the international order and global stability has been committed. Countries claiming to be paragons of democracy and the rule of law proudly assert that they have forcibly amputated, without its consent, the territory of a sovereign state and member of the United Nations.But despite any declaration, despite any foreign recognitions, Kosovo is no more independent now than it was before. Legally, it remains part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Serbia, and will remain so. What has changed is the status of the international mission in Kosovo. Since 1999, the United Nations and NATO have been present in Kosovo as unwelcome guests with Serbia's agreement, pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which affirms Kosovo as part of Serbia and provides for its "essential autonomy" within Serbia. Despite corrupt reinterpretations by the recognizing countries, not one syllable of Resolution 1244 provides for Kosovo's separation from Serbia. In addition, Serbia specifically has rejected the illegal deployment on its territory of a mission of the European Union (EU) tasked, ironically, with legal reform.Through their support of what Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has called a "puppet entity" on Serbia's territory, the recognizing states and the EU have inflicted a grave act of political violence on the international legal system. Their actions undermine the most basic principal of international peace: guarantees of the territorial integrity of sovereign states in the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, and other universally binding commitments. Every multiethnic country, especially those with violent separatist movements, is now placed at risk. Americans should take note that what our government seeks to inflict on Serbia today may be the fate of the southwest United States tomorrow.Even worse than the act of political violence, the declared establishment and recognition of an illegal, separatist entity on Serbian territory presents the threat of stepped-up physical violence.

As the archpastor of Kosovo's endangered Orthodox Christians, His Grace ARTEMIJE, Bishop of Ras and Prizren, warned during his most recent visit to Washington:"Threats have already been issued that after an independence declaration and recognition, force would be used to shut down so-called 'parallel structures' in Serbian enclaves -- in reality the legitimate institutions of our state -- including the Mitrovica office of the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija. Such actions, with expected attacks on Serbian citizens, would constitute a direct assault on the Serbian state and the Serbian nation. While it would be inappropriate to disclose Serbia’s specific response, we will defend our territory and our people as would any other democratic country. Russia and other friendly countries are prepared to assist us. . . . We Serbs have suffered many occupations in the past and triumphed over them. If necessary we would survive this one as well. Despite any intensification of the terror to which we Christians have been subjected since 1999, my flock in Kosovo has no intention of leaving their homes."It would be up to the KLA and their supporters to decide whether to kick off a new cycle of violence by attacking Serbs, who live in fear that the remaining third of their pre-war population would be eradicated and the rest of their churches destroyed. While advocates of Kosovo's amputation from Serbia have taken comfort from the expectation that Serbia would not respond appropriately to attacks on its citizens, that expectation is a miscalculation. The Kosovo Albanians' terrorist leadership and the recognizing states have needlessly created a volatile ixture: shattering the international legal system, US-Russia confrontation, violence on the ground, criminality, human rights violations, and a new frozen conflict.Purported justifications for Kosovo’s independence based on the supposed “humanitarian intervention” by NATO in 1999 are misplaced. Far from the usual claims that NATO stopped a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo, the past nine years have seen a slow-motion genocide in progress against the province’s Christian Serbian population under the nose of the UN and NATO, and at times with their assent. Two-thirds of the Serbian population already has been expelled and have not been able to return safely to their homes. Over 150 churches and monasteries have been destroyed. Hundreds of new Saudi-funded mosques fomenting the extreme Wahhabi doctrine have sprung up.The American Council for Kosovo asks all Americans and citizens of other countries to contact your government to demand:

* No diplomatic ties should be established with the illegal, criminal, separatist, KLA regime in Pristina! Any ambassador nominated to Pristina must be denied confirmation!
* No foreign assistance to the illegal, criminal, separatist, KLA regime in Pristina!
* No support by the foreign mission in Kosovo should given to KLA terrorist efforts to expand their “authority” into Serb-controlled areas!
* The EU “rule of law” occupation force must be withdrawn! * The illegal “puppet entity” on Serbian soil must be dissolved!
* New negotiations, without preconceived results, must be started between Serbia and responsible representatives of the Albanian community to reach a lasting settle consistent with international law!Americans immediately should contact their Senators and Congressmen with these demands. They should call the White House (202-456-1111) to protest U.S. recognition and demand the above measures, or email to:President George W. Bush: comments@whitehouse.gov mailto: comments@whitehouse.govVice President Richard B. Cheney: vice_president@whitehouse.gov
&src=&type=x&to=vice_president@whitehouse.gov&cc=&bcc=&subject=&body=&curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=deb44805b83d4a1a3b4d68859c8a704782cc4f8987044b51fcdd8146e4e0424b">vice_president@whitehouse.gov>James George JatrasDirector, American Council for Kosovo (www.savekosovo.org <http://www.savekosovo.org/>)The American Council for Kosovo is an activity of Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC, and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, under the spiritual guidance of His Grace, Bishop ARTEMIJE of Ras and Prizren. Additional information with respect to this matter is on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Unit of the Department of Justice in Washington DC

What to Expect Once Kosovo PM Agim Ceku declares iillegal independence!

IC/XC
NI/KA

We love you Serbia, and we are praying for you Serbia!

Dear Stella Jatras and all beloved Orthodox Christians,

May the great peace and the love of our Lord God always be with you!

I am in constant prayer and fasting for the love of our beloved Brothers and Sisters in our Lord in Kosovo/Metohija.

Can we imagine an Albanian flag for Kosovo? My goodness! God be merciful to us all! The flag of Kosovo/Metohija, Serbia is the Serbian Flag!

The concern all of us have to be aware of is after independence is declared in Kosovo/Metohija with our without the UN approval this is what shall happen thereafter....

1). The celebration of independence shall go for about two weeks!

2). Once these celebrations are over the people who believe in this independence then will start to go from home to home and tell the Serbian population 'you owe us tax for you to live in this home and if you do not pay this tax then you must leave this property within twenty-four hours!' This as well will be the same for the those who own farms and local business as a heavy tax will be imposed. If these tax's are not paid then the property becomes the new Independent States land!

3). Thousands of individuals who are a part of this independence shall march towards our Serbian Orthodox Churches, and local monasteries and declare that their property no longer belongs to them but to the new Independent State. Monks, and nuns, including priest will be slaughtered if they do not approve or desire to leave their churches or monasteries. Orthodox monks and nuns, as well as priest will perish and be known missing! The media will pay no attention to these matters!

4). An increase of destruction of our Serbian Orthodox Churches and Holy Monasteries will rise and once one or two more churches and monasteries are destroyed and the Western media will pay no intention as well as the local police -then more churches and monasteries will perish week by week and month by month.

5). Local towns and cities with the Serbian population will be attacked and more citizens will seek to flee for their lives as no one shows interest or concern for the lives of these men, women, and children either by the peace-keeping troops who must themselves defend their own lives, however some peace-keeping troops will remain loyal!

6). Their will be an increase of Serbian missing men, women, and children!

7). Serbian citizens will perish on a daily basis, and the children will be in fear to come out of their homes or even go to school!

8). Dishonor and the lack of respect for the ideals of it's culture or it's religious heritage this will indeed be on the increase to seek to destroy the ideals and teachings of the Holy Orthodox Faith throughout the region!

9). The Holy Orthodox faith within the region of Kosovo/Metohija will decrease and the persecution of it's loving Christian shall perish and we shall see more martyrdoms! Blood will be spilled everywhere!

10). Talk will be that the new Independent State will say that they somewhat desire to see the restoration of the local Serbian Orthodox Churches and Monasteries but only for tourist reasons and to attract others to visit their region. Lies about the destruction of more then 150 Serbian Orthodox Churches shall go unnoticed and it will be indicated that these churches and monasteries where all destroyed during the war in spite of the fact that 99% of these churches and monasteries where destroyed after the war was over!

11). An abundance of abandoned Serbian Orthodox Churches and monasteries will be on the increase!

12). Rumors of war will increase throughout the region, and throughout the world as the debate of this independence will be that it's not acceptable!

13). The UN peace-keeping troops will leave the region or a decrease of these troops will take place and then the Independent State shall wait to then make their move to destroy or take over local towns, cities, and the Serbian Orthodox Churches, Monasteries and local cemeteries!

14). A humanitarian crisis!

15). Starvation and fear will be on the rise!

16). God weeps!

This independence is and always will be null!

Kosovo/Metohija, Serbia and always will be Serbia forever!

Pray and fast for all of Serbia, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray and pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray and pray!

May our Gracious God be Merciful!

Pray and fast for Serbia!

A Time to Pray and Fast for Kosovo-Metohija and Serbia

Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 3:49 PM
Subject: Please pray and remember to fast for Kosovo/Metohija,
IC/XC
NI/KA

Please share this with others on behalf of the Serbian Orthodox Christians in Kosovo/Metohija...

A time to pray and to fast for Kosovo/Metohija....

Beloved In Christ our Lord,

May the great peace and love of our Lord God always be with you!

All of us have heard the news that either this Sunday or within a few weeks independence will be declared in Kosovo/Metohija with or without UN approval.

What is important for us all is indeed that we should offer our humble prayers and remember to fast when the church calls us to fast on Wednesday and Fridays. Several pious Orthodox Christians on their own are fasting at this time on a four day fast as well as offering prayers. Let us indeed fast and pray for Kosovo/Metohija! Please do so with faith for the love our God and His Church the Holy Orthodox Faith we all love!

Every afternoon at 2 pm I offer what we call in our Orthodox Church "The Supplication Service" as since I receive many request for prayers for general needs for both the living and the newly departed in the Lord. I again daily offer this supplication service for our beloved brothers and sisters in Kosovo/Metohija.

I would suggest that we all as well can do either an Akathist to Christ our Lord, or to the Mother of God on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Kosovo/Metohija. To find the Akathist to the Mother of God, and or an Akathist to our Sweetest Lord Jesus Christ do a search on the internet. Then again we can also pray to the Great Martyr Tsar Lazar, the Great Saint Sava, and St. Nektarios of Aegina for their loving intercessions.

Lets all face it beloved in Christ our Lord we know that their are those who do not love us and yet we are going to give our Christian love right back to those who continue to try to destroy or disrupt our pious pilgrimage to Paradise. We are of course in tears that peace and good will among all men within the region of Kosovo/Metohija has not been fully understood and that all people have not lived as brothers and sisters with love and concern for each other.

We as pious Orthodox Christians do not have the right to judge no one, but all we are simply asking is every living human being has the right to live as a free person, and to follow their faith even as Orthodox Christians in the region of Kosovo/Metohija do so on a daily basis within their homes, churches, and monasteries...they pray and they pray and they pray -they pray for you and those who do not love us!

It is crucially important that not one of us should have, spiritually, a heart of stone, let us then stop throwing stones! Stone hearts have no life, and are useless in the loving service of our Saviour Jesus Christ. We know well that there is no place for a hard heart in the Kingdom of God. We love all people even those who simply hate us and do not love us. In the Kingdom, in His paradise, is gentleness and humility and the love of Christ, who pities all mankind. We are after all a Christian faith and a religion that our love for you grows from day to day deep within our hearts and poor souls! We do not at one moment think of you as our enemies but as our dear friends who have lived together in throughout the region of Kosovo/Metohija in the past and desire this in the present.

We believe that Kosovo/Metohija is Serbia and Serbia it shall be at this time and forever more!

We simply desire that as Orthodox Christians to live in the same land you love Kosovo/Metohija and we desire that you enjoy the same beauty of the mountains and hills of this region. We desire to pray in our churches, and in our monasteries, as well as in our homes. We humbly ask you to stop destroying these places of our prayers for you and for the whole world, and we ask you to allow us to as well as rest in peace within our Orthodox cemeteries. Then again we want to walk the streets you walk and grow our crops you do to and finally we want to protect and preserve our families like you.

All Orthodox Christians also love Serbia and we love you who we stand with and walk together throughout this vast land that can be truly be a place of the creation of our God of true peace and good will among all men! Let us then begin the road of understanding that Kosovo/Metohija is your land and our land together! Stop the destruction before our eyes, and stop the hate in your hearts because we still love you as we to remind ourselves as Christians we judge no one, nor desire punishment or torments of no one, but only love!

It then is my earnest prayer the peace keeping troops within the region of Kosovo/Metohija do not abandon the Serbian population. Walk not away!

It then is my earnest prayer that the reconstruction of the countless destroyed Serbian Orthodox Churches and Monasteries be repaired and that further destruction in this regards cease at this hour! This well includes Serbian Orthodox Cemeteries also be repaired.

It then is my earnest prayer that all children be protected as well as their families and every living Serbian soul has the right to live in their own land!

It then is my earnest prayer that all Serbian citizens have the right to return back to their homeland all 250,000 of them who are Serbian!

It then is my earnest prayer that all missing Serbian men, women, and children be returned back to their families!

It then is my earnest prayer that we stop throwing stones at us even the children of the region who ride in buses or any Serbian citizen. Stop this hatred and put down your stones!

Peace begins with love and understanding one another.

Kosovo/Metohija is Serbia and will be forever!

Peace to your soul!

Humbly in Christ our Lord,
+Very Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
Who prays for you!

http://www.serfes.org
father@serfes.org

Serbia will Declare Unilateral Independence of Kosovo Null and Void

Only Serbia can lay claim to Kosovo-Metohija
Belgrade, Feb 13, 2008 – Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has called on Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija to remain in their houses, in their province and in their Serbia, noting that the decision of the Serbian government to annul the unilateral independence of Kosovo will be Serbia’s decision to, once and for all, reject a phoney state on its territory.
Kostunica told news agency Tanjug that the government’s decision to annul the unilateral independence of Kosovo is of historic importance, as it is Serbia’s decision to reject the existence of a phoney state on its territory once and for all. He noted that the Serbian government, immediately upon adopting this decision, will inform the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary-General that all illegal acts on the proclamation of unilateral independence have been annulled. The final word of our common state and national policy is that no one but Serbia can lay claim to the territory of Kosovo-Metohija. No policy of force can deprive Serbia of that right, nor can Serbia be forced by threats and blackmail to renounce Kosovo-Metohija, the Prime Minister stressed.According to Kostunica, in a situation where Serbia is jeopardised with threats that, under the leadership of convicted terrorists and under the patronage of the United States and the EU, the province will unilaterally declare independence, we must focus all our strength to constantly show at every step that Kosovo-Metohija is an inseparable part of Serbia. Our people in Kosovo-Metohija should remain in their houses, in their province and in their Serbia. For the government of Serbia, each man in Kosovo is an equal citizen of Serbia enjoying full rights and it is our obligation to do absolutely everything to provide normal living conditions for our people in the province, the Prime Minister said.

Orthodox Won't Acknowledge Kosovo Independence

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n133380

Orthodox church won’t acknowledge Kosovo independence

10 February 2008 11:12 FOCUS News AgencyWashington.

The Orthodox Church of Kosovo wouldn’t acknowledge the independence of the province if it was declared unilaterally by Pristina and would remain loyal to Belgrade, Head of the Orthodox Church of the Serbian Province Bishop Rastko Artemije said in Washington, ITAR – TASS informs.‘Independence is not the only option for resolving the problem. The West appealed for a compromise to be found but capitulation was what was left to us to choose,’ Bishop Artemije declared.This is not the first visit of the cleric in the US, his purpose being to try to change American position on Kosovo. During his visits he said many times that the Serbians could not adopt the plan of Marti Ahtisaari which was supported by Washington. According to the bishop the independence declaration by Kosovo could lead to outburst of violence.© 2008 All rights reserved.

Let's Avoid Another Kosovo Crisis

February 11, 2008.Source: The Wall Street Journal
Let's Avoid Another Kosovo Crisis
By RUTH WEDGWOODFebruary 9, 2008; Page A9

Small events in the Balkans have a way of getting out of hand, as Emperor Franz Joseph might once have remarked.
Thus, it is good news that Serbian voters defeated ultra-nationalist presidential candidate Tomislav Nikolic in last weekend's election, instead approving incumbent Boris Tadic for a second term. Mr. Tadic wants to link Serbia's future to the European Union.
But now it is the turn of the West to act with prudence and responsibility -- in particular on the incendiary issue of Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia that is home to Serb Orthodox Christians and ethnic Albanian Muslims.
In a strongly worded essay recently published in the Washington Times, former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former Assistant Defense Secretary Peter Rodman and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton expressed grave concern about the haste of the current Bush foreign policy team in encouraging Kosovo to declare unilateral independence. Their storm warning -- that such a declaration could cause violence in the province and lead to a crisis with Russia -- is worth heeding.
Kosovo has been part of the territory of Serbia since before the First World War, and its ancient monasteries are iconic to the Serbs. Belgrade's government coalition is already in crisis on the issue.
It is a dangerous precedent to tear apart the territory of a member state of the United Nations. And the timing could not be worse. No one needs a Kosovo crisis, while NATO remains short of troops in Afghanistan and maintains 16,000 troops in this autonomous province of Serbia. A Kosovo blowup would provide an easy excuse for gun-shy European allies to reduce their Afghanistan contingents.
Kosovo secessionists ignore economic realities. Kosovo has coal, lead and people, but it is stuck in a corner of Europe few tourists wander through. Some might visit its surviving Serbian Orthodox monasteries, but not while the place is in turmoil. Since Europe has proclaimed without grace that the European economic union is limited to Christian countries, Kosovo's best (and perhaps only) chance to join Europe's economy is to ride in as a part of Serbia.
Instead, Kosovo's secessionist leadership may well join the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, as Albania already has done. This may bring financial assistance from the OIC, but the West should worry -- with aid comes political influence.
Kosovo's proclamation of independence would destabilize America's other friends in the Balkans. Bosnia will face a new attempt by the self-styled "Serbian republic" to leave the Dayton structure. Macedonia's restive ethnic Albanian minority may again ask why it is stuck in a state with Orthodox Slavs.
The effect in Central Europe would also not be benign. Hungary, Romania, Ukraine and Greece are home to irredentist minorities whose radical elements dream of redrawing maps. Nicosia faces a self-proclaimed "independent" Turkish republic of northern Cyprus. The Black Sea republic of Georgia, which we seek to bolster against Russian ambition, faces the claims of Abkhazia, a breakaway Muslim region in the north.
To be sure, one can appreciate why Kosovo Albanians are leery of Belgrade. From 1997 to 1999, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic met the militant tactics of the Kosovo Liberation Army with a brutal police and military campaign, and after NATO intervened, he embarked on a bizarre and criminal exercise in ethnic cleansing, forcing tens of thousands of Muslim citizens out of their homes. The former Serbian president was tried for this crime and other outrages in the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
But Milosevic is now dead, and Western policy should recognize the difference. Human rights activists in Serbia -- who stood up to Milosevic when it was dangerous to do so -- act with consistent principle in reporting the difficulties and dangers that will be imposed on Kosovo's substantial Serb minority.
There should be no false optimism or halcyon view of the province following the events of March 2004. Three ethnic Albanian children were killed in the northern town of Mitrovica, and afterwards anti-Serb rioting spread across the entire province, leading to the death of 19 civilians, another thousand civilians injured, and widespread burning of Serb houses, churches and monasteries. Independence will not cure this antipathy. It is hard to see how the NATO humanitarian intervention in 1999, designed to combat ethnic cleansing, is morally consistent with a new indifference to predictable counter-cleansing.
Smaller ethnic communities in Kosovo are also at risk, in the face of a recrudescent Albanian nationalism. The minority Muslim communities of Bosniaks, Gorani, Turks and Egyptians, along with the Ashkali and Roma, have faced violence and discrimination from the Albanian majority.
In negotiations on Kosovo's future, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari -- a respected international statesman -- has proposed an internationally-supervised government for Kosovo that would be akin to the Dayton Framework Agreement for Bosnia.
Kosovo's national political institutions would include representatives from each ethnic community. International officials would cast a deciding vote on the constitutional court and supervisory educational boards. Kosovo's Serbian communities could maintain relationships with the government of Serbia. There would be a continuing international military presence. And most tellingly, as in Bosnia, an "international civilian representative" could nullify local legislative and administrative decisions and remove non-compliant public officials. Only if conditions of stability were obtained would these guarantees be lifted.
But such a plan, as in Bosnia, requires a Chapter 7 resolution from the U.N. Security Council. It is unlikely, in the heat of independence, that a new state will willingly yield decisionmaking authority to an international auditor. And any Council resolution requires Russian acquiescence.
That leaves few options. Democratic states could demand that Kosovo adopt constitutional guarantees, in order to obtain international recognition. But there is no simple way of enforcing the promise. U.N. Security Council resolution 1244, dating from the NATO military campaign, does not address itself to a post-independence situation.
Sometimes a crisis focuses the mind. The president and the Secretary of State should consider a more practical option. America and its allies, acting through the Security Council, can provide a permanent international guarantee of Kosovo's political autonomy within the formal territory of Serbia. Combined with the Ahtisaari conditions, even Belgrade and Moscow are likely to accept such a guarantee.
This will give Kosovo as much, or more, than it would achieve through nominal independence. Autonomy can include the right to enter into certain types of international agreements. It can include the right to have international observer missions. Autonomy can entail more real power than is available to a neutered state, unable even to join the U.N. in the face of a Russian veto.
Even if Kosovo independence is ultimately unavoidable, there is much to be gained in securing the result in a way that Serbia and Russia can live with.
Ms. Wedgwood is a professor of international law and diplomacy at Johns Hopkins University

Unites States Should Leave Kosovo Alone

Outside View: Kosovo issue best left alone

February 06, 2008.

Source: United Press International
Outside View: Kosovo issue best left alone
By JAMES GEORGE JATRASUPI Outside View Commentator
During its final year in office, the Bush administration has a full plate on the foreign front: intractable war in Iraq, Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, concerns about Iran's nuclear program, nuclear uncertainty in North Korea, increasingly unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan, and hopes for an ever-elusive settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
With all that to juggle, one might think Washington would hesitate to trigger a blowup on a seemingly unimportant matter that could transform into a full-blown global crisis. Yet that is exactly what the administration intends to do with respect to the Serbian province of Kosovo.
Since the 1999 NATO war against what was then Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia, Kosovo has been under U.N. administration. The province remains legally part of Serbia as Albanian Muslims escalate their demands to create an independent country. Despite pious assurances of protection, the remaining Christian Serbs know that Kosovo's independence would mean curtains for them. With a quarter of a million Serbs (and other non-Albanians: Roma (Gypsies), Croats, Gorani, all the Jews) terrorized from the province during the past nine years of "peacetime" when the rest of the world had turned it eyes elsewhere, the Serbs' fears are well-founded. Since 1999, some 150 Christian shrines have been destroyed or desecrated. At the same time, hundreds of mosques have been built, mainly with Saudi money and propagating the intolerant Wahhabi brand of Islam.
The effective authority in the Albanian Muslim community is an organized crime network trafficking in drugs, women and weapons. The legitimate economy is virtually nonexistent. Independent or not, it's hard to see how Kosovo ceases to be an economic basket case and black hole of terror, crime and corruption, despite billions of aid dollars and euros dumped into the place.
In short, Kosovo is a mess, and it's not obvious how or when that can be changed. Left alone, it might remain one of the worlds simmering sore spots, like Kashmir or Cyprus, until the parties manage to come to some agreement -- or don't.
However, for reasons that are hard to understand, the Bush administration -- joined, oddly enough, by Hillary Clinton -- demands that immediate independence for Kosovo's Albanians is the only possible solution. The fact that democratic Serbia refuses to concede amputation of 15 percent of its territory, and has offered the Albanians the fullest autonomy enjoyed by any minority group anywhere in the world, is ignored. Likewise dismissed is the fact that the relevant U.N. Security Council Resolution affirms Serbia's sovereignty, which Russia insists must be respected.
If, as now planned, Kosovo's Albanians declare independence after a green light from Washington, a bad situation would get much worse. Violence would flare as Muslim Albanians step up their attacks on Christian Serbs. Belgrade would be forced to consider how to respond as its citizens are targeted under the eyes of an illegal occupying force. Moscow, livid at the prospect of an end-run of the Security Council, has said it stands ready to aid Serbia if asked. Countries around the world would be forced to take sides on whether to recognize Kosovo's independence. Most probably would not, as separatist groups in dozens of countries cite Kosovo as reason to demand carving out their own states. Washington might find itself isolated, along with a few countries that had followed our lead.Setting all this in motion might be justified if there were some obvious U.S. benefit. But the opposite is the case. Why should we provoke a needless fight with a newly muscular Russia? Especially after Sept. 11, why should America want to be midwife to the birth of a new Islamic country in Europe? Already having experienced "blowback" in the form of the jihad terror plot against Fort Dix, N.J., where four of the six indictees are Albanian Muslims from the Kosovo region, why give the Albanian mafia a consolidated base from which to extend its operations?
The United States has no interest in creating an independent Kosovo, even if it were easy to achieve. The fact that trying to separate Kosovo from Serbia would be anything but easy would just add one more headache to our list. If the Bush administration has any sense, it will leave Kosovo to the next president, whoever that might be.
(James George Jatras is director of the American Council for Kosovo (www.savekosovo.org) and principal, Squire Sanders Public Advocacy in Washington. He previously served as senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican leadership of the U.S. Senate.) –

Serbia's Step Forward is To Defend Her Sovereign, Civil, International and Territorial Rights

February 05, 2008.Source: The Washington Post

The Diocese of Ras-Prizen and Kosovo-Metohija is bringing the article '' Serbia's step forward'' published in '' The Washington post'' and reaction of His Grace Bishop Artemije on it.
Serbia's Step Forward
Reelected President Boris Tadic has a mandate to move toward Europe.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008; Page A18

The outcome of a presidential election in Serbia on Sunday has opened the possibility that the United States and its European allies might be able to take some long-delayed steps toward stabilizing the volatile Balkan region, site of a decade of bloody wars during the 1990s. The vote was partly a referendum on how Serbia should respond to the imminent declaration of independence by the province of Kosovo, which was freed from Serbia nine years ago by a U.S.-led NATO military campaign. Incumbent President Boris Tadic said that Serbia should continue to move toward integration with the European Union even if leading European governments recognize Kosovo, as they are planning to do. His opponent said Serbia should turn its back on the West and cast its lot with Russia, which has been aggressively nurturing Serbia's poisonous nationalism.
Luckily for the Balkans and for Europe, Serbs chose the path of Western integration; Mr. Tadic won. The president hopes to sign an agreement on expanded cooperation with the European Union, allowing more trade, visa-free travel and the prospect of eventual E.U. membership for Serbia. Though Mr. Tadic and the Serbian government will loudly protest Kosovo's independence declaration, that long-overdue event is now less likely to lead to violence.
That doesn't mean Serbia's path will be easy: Every step the former Yugoslav republic takes toward joining the liberal democracies is tortured. Mr. Tadic still must overcome the resistance of his party's coalition partner in parliament, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, a nationalist hard-liner who has also called for a rupture with Europe over Kosovo. Moscow will surely continue its effort to detach Serbia from Europe and make it a vassal state; last month, the Russian state energy monopoly Gazprom bought a controlling interest in Serbia's entire oil and gas industry.
Mr. Tadic and his liberal allies have a tendency to ask Western leaders to appease the nationalists, such as by putting off Kosovo's independence or by dropping demands for the extradition of war criminals. Now that he has a clear mandate from voters, Mr. Tadic ought to insist on his own agenda -- for example, by demanding that Mr. Kostunica either support an agreement with the European Union or resign and face the voters himself. The West can help by working to ensure that the ethnic Serbian minority in Kosovo is secure and treated fairly once independence is declared. Both the European Union and NATO should aim to integrate Serbia as well as Kosovo and their neighbors - Albania, Crotatia, Macedonia and Montenegro -- as quickly as possible. When Serbia chooses the West over nationalist isolation, it should receive a favorable response.
AND HERE IS REACTION OF BISHOP ARTEMIJE
As archpastor of the Orthodox Christian people of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, I feel compelled to respond to any false impressions that may be created by the recent editorial "Serbia's Step Forward," February 5. In particular, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the recent presidential election between Boris Tadic and Tomislav Nikolic was a choice between the European Union and Russia, or that it was in any way a referendum on separation of Kosovo from Serbia.

With regard to the first, Serbia will maintain its evenhanded and moderate policy based, to the extent possible, on friendly relations with both West and East. During the campaign, Mr. Nikolic made a point of keeping open Serbia's eventual orientation toward the EU, though of course any recognition of Kosovo's independence by EU countries would have a negative impact on our relationship. By the same token, Mr. Tadic recently was in Moscow for the signing of a major Serbian-Russian energy agreement.

With respect to Kosovo, there should be no mistake that both candidates categorically maintained that Kosovo is Serbia and will remain so. While Serbs may be disagree as to the exact response should some governments, including the United States, continue with the reckless course of encouraging an illegal independence declaration and recognition, there should be no mistake that we will defend our people and our national territory with all means available to any democratic country. If the Albanian separatists, with U.S. support, make good on their threats to compel my flock to submit to their illegitimate authority, and use force against the lawful institutions of the Serbian government in Kosovo, a cycle of stepped-up violence, not of our choosing, will result. We hope that before such an unnecessary crisis is unleashed, a crisis that may become uncontrollable by anybody, prudence will suggest that continued dialogue, not aggressive impositions, are the better path to peace and reconciliation.
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President Boris Tadic Wins Election-Manufactured Consent?

Vojvodin Hungarian and Croats in Northern Serbia and Albanians and Muslims in the Raskic Region of Serbia rallied to defeat Tomislav Nikolic by a slim margin on Sunday. Incumbent President Tadic won the election, and his election is seen as a victory for those forces wishing to join the European Union. However the presence of foreign Non Governmental Organizations and a plurality of political parties supported by Western Interests-both state and individual- throws a shadow of doubt on the legitamacy of Tadic's victory. One wonders if the apparant consent of the people was not in fact manufactured.
British Ambassador Breaks Serbia's Rule of Election Silence
Many Western governments were not only watching this election but were trying to influence voters as exemplified by the British Ambassador Stephen Wordsworth to Serbia who went so far as to make an public appeal to Albanians and Muslims to vote on Sunday to defeat Nikolic. According to Svetlana Novko, an Canadian Serbian Orthodox iconographer who writes the blog Byzantine Blog, Glas Javnosti, a Serbian newspaper, reports that the British has also financed CESID as a parallel structure to Serbia's Republic's Electoral Commission to count the votes at the election runoffs. Novko states that CESID results were published in all the media (backed by Western Media concerns) without waiting for the states legal body to count and announce the results of the votes.

There are many parallel political parties being fronted by Westerners, including the United States to undermine the authentic democratic process in Serbia. One such group headed by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright is called the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and it is based here in the United States. Former President Carter is associated with this group.

Under this group are three organizations, the Centrist Democratic Institute (co-presidents are Pier Ferdinando Cassini of Italy and Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox), the Liberalist International and the Socialist Internationale. The Serbian party Christian Democratic Party Internationale is an observer member of the Centrist Democratic Institute and openly advocates the succession of Kosovo from Serbia. There are over one hundred members countries of the CDI, including the United States and Albania.

Other parties, NGOs, media outlets and other non-profits are fronted by such people as George Soros, who is in particular known amongst Serbians who want to preserve their cultural hegemony as an individual who is anti-Serbian.

This group CESID has therefore has made an uncivil, and pre-emptive attempt to list its numbers as official over those numbers of the governing institutions of Serbia. The presence of these groups in Serbia, and their ability to influence elections by disseminating mis-information in order to influence the Serbian peoples against their best interest is very questionable, and needs to be investigated and challenged by those members of the International Community that want sincerely to uphold the rights of sovereign states, and the right to the integrity of borders. It also calls into question the legitamacy of the election results--and this needs to be challenged and investigated. The results of such illegitamacy can have quite a destabilizing effect as we have seen with the recent events in Kenya.


Although Tadic's victory is seen as a victory for those wanting Serbia to join the E.U., the presence of the organizations in this country, their sources of income, manpower, and other material support, and the way they operate in nation-states against a viable, authentic democratic process needs to be examined and needs to be challenged so that the true voice of the people can be heard. Until this investigation is carried out, Tadic's election will forever be seen, by this writer at least, as under a cloud of suspician.

CESID is the acronym for the Centar za Slobodne Izbore i Demokratiju (Center for Free Elections and Democracy; Belgrade, Yugoslavia)

Bishop Artemije's Statement to Washington

01. february 2008.Source: PRNewswire-USNewswire
Bishop Artemije issued the statement
prior to his visit to Washington

Following today's publication of a Washington Times commentary(http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080131/COMMENTARY/288472699/1012)
written by former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman urging the Bush Administration to withhold recognition of a unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence, His Grace, Bishop Artemije of Ras and Prizren issued the following statement prior to his visit to Washington to meet with Administration and Congressional officials andpolicymakers:

As I begin my latest mission to Washington, my country is being subjected to heightened threats from the government of the United States with respect to the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. Having just returned from Berlin and consultations with Members of the Bundestag, the Administration, and think tanks, NGOs, and media, it is clear that America's European allies are increasingly concerned about theconsequences of the course Washington is trying to impose on them. The U.S. response has been to step up the pressure.
For example, the press in Slovenia, currently chairing the European Union, recently revealed American officials' diktat to supposedly independent countries. In an account confirmed by Slovenian official sources, we hear American diplomats commanding the timing of a planned unilateral declaration of independence by the Albanian Muslimadministration in Pristina and its recognition by the U.S. and some other governments. Even exposed is the shameful intention to trigger the crisis on the Lord's Day to thwart Russia in convening an emergency session of the Security Council.
Threats have already been issued that after an independence declaration and recognition, force would be used to shut down so-called "parallel structures" in Serbian enclaves -- in reality the legitimate institutions of our state -- including the Mitrovica office of the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija. Such actions, with expected attacks on Serbian citizens, would constitute a direct assault on the Serbian state and the Serbian nation. While it would be inappropriate to disclose Serbia's specific response, we will defend our territory and our people as would any other democratic country. Russia and other friendly countries are prepared to assist us.
Should Washington and its followers make good on their current threats to recognize Kosovo, Serbia would never accept it. Not only Russia but many other countries, especially those outside of Europe, would reject recognition. Kosovo would never become a member of the United Nations. We would regard the international presence in Kosovo, including the mission now being considered by the EU, as an occupation force. We Serbs have suffered many occupations in the past and triumphed over them. If necessary we would survive this one as well. Despite any intensification of the terror to which we Christians have been subjected since 1999, my flock in Kosovo has no intention of leaving their homes.
I do not welcome having to direct these critical words at the United States. Serbs have always regarded America as a friend and continue to do so. Americans and Serbs were allies in both World Wars. We are not the ones who are pursuing a confrontation today. But it is impossible for America to profess friendship with Serbia while demanding the amputation of the most precious part of our homeland.
Despite the mistakes made so far, I am convinced that there is still a chance reason will prevail and the disastrous path laid before us will be averted. Today three highly respected former U.S. officials published a thoughtful and constructive analysis of the looming injury to American national interests:
"We believe that an imposed settlement of the Kosovo question and seeking to partition Serbia's sovereign territory without its consent is not in the interest of the United States. The blithe assumption of American policy -- that the mere passage of nine years of relative quiet would be enough to lull Serbia and Russia into reversing their positions on aconflict that goes back centuries -- has proven to be naive in the extreme. We believe that American policy on Kosovo must be reexamined without delay, and we urge the Bush Administration to make it clear that pending the results of such reexamination it would withhold recognition of a Kosovo independence declaration and discourage Kosovo's Albanians from taking that step."
Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger, Ambassador John Bolton, and Assistant Secretary Peter Rodman conclude: "As with thorny questions elsewhere, viable and enduring settlements should result from negotiation and compromise. Such an outcome has been undermined by an American promise to the Kosovo Albanians that their demands will be satisfied if they remain adamant and no agreement is reached with Belgrade." I believe that negotiations must continue until a mutually acceptable solution can be found to allow us and our Albanian neighbors to live together in peace. Honest talks, without ultimatums or guaranteed results for either side, with no outcome barred from discussion, can still bear fruit. I ask all Americans of good will to ask their leaders in Washington to choose this path.

For more information, please visit the American Council for Kosovo's Web site at http://www.savekosovo.org.
Please American Orthodox Sign Petition: NO INDEPENDENCE FOR KOSOVO
Call the numbers I gave and tell them Please Do not Slaughter Kovoso Christians in Kosovo--white house (Pres. Bush 202 456 1111 TTY 202 456 6213
email: comments@whitehouse.gov
vice_president@whitehouse.gov
Secretary Condoleeza Rice
202-647 5291
Her Personal Secretary
202 647 9572
State Department Regional Director of Europe/Eurasia Don Roseblum
202 647 5222
The American Council for Kosovo is an activity of Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC, and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, under the spiritual guidance of His Grace, Bishop ARTEMIJE of Ras and Prizren. Additional information with respect to this matter is on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Unit of the Department of Justice in Washington DC.

Promoting the Birth of a Supremacist State

By Julia Gorin
FrontPageMagazine.com 1/31/2008
Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday, the UN put on display an exhibit paying tribute to the Righteous of Albania who risked all to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. The exhibit arrived at the UN from Yad Vashem, where it was on display for two months. While the Righteous of any nation indeed should be acknowledged and commemorated, the problem with the exhibit is its underlying agenda. Jews, along with the Albanian Righteous of WWII, are being used by the Albanians of today to advance a racially supremacist end game in the Balkans, where world wars start-and cost principally Jewish and Serbian lives.
The timing on this exhibit is very specific. An independent Kosovo is within Albanian grasp, and the Albanians learned early on-starting with the Bosnian and Croatian wars followed by the Kosovo war-that selling the Jews on your version of an ethnic rivalry can open doors. Indeed, 70 million Croatian, Bosnian and Albanian dollars spent on PR firms targeting major Jewish organizations managed to bring Jewish support on the side of an openly Nazi-nostalgist Croatia of the 1990s whose president (Franjo Tudjman) had written a Holocaust-denying book implicating the Jews themselves in Holocaust deaths. The PR also succeeded in bringing Jewish support to the side of a Muslim Bosnia whose president (Alija Izetbegovic) had written the Islamic Declaration (affirming the incompatibility of a Muslim state and Western values). And it brought Jewish support on board a Hezbollah-assisted, bin Laden-financed and -trained Kosovo Liberation Army-against the Serbs, who were killed together with Jews in concentration camps.
Behind the Jews, the Serbs were also targeted people for elimination during WWII, and while Jews and Serbs died together in Axis power Croatia's Jasenovac camp complex, Albanians and Bosnians formed their own volunteer SS units.
Albanians are in the midst of completing their land grab from Serbia, a country whose people ousted Slobodan Milosevic almost a decade ago in favor of Westward-looking leaders. The acquisition of Kosovo was the goal from the start, when the Kosovo Liberation Army first began killing Serbs, along with Albanians and gypsies (Roma) who worked even as postmen for the Yugoslav government or simply had inter-ethnic friendships or marriages with Serbs. As if getting the Jews to betray their historical ally and co-victim weren't perverse enough, today's Kosovo is an ethnically purified state, cleansed of almost all of its minorities: Serbs, Roma, Gorani (mountain Muslims), Bosnian Muslims, Croats-and Jews.
Before Yad Vashem agreed to feature the exhibit and became an unwitting enabler of the ill-begotten new "Kosova," it should have asked why even the last 15 Jews in Kosovo's capital had to clear out, with just the clothes on their backs, when the KLA stormed their homes in 1999. At the time, the president of Pristina's tiny Jewish community, Cedomir Prlincevic, spoke of two dozen armed men breaking into his family's apartment: "My mother, who is 80 years old, suffered a heart attack because it reminded her of 1943 when Hitler's SS units broke into her apartment in the same way."
Indeed, in the destruction and desecration of Orthodox churches, monasteries and cemeteries that has continued apace since NATO gifted Kosovo to the Albanians, the Jewish cemetery that adjoins the Serbian one in the village of Velika Hoca has also been vandalized, according to the book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo.
That the Holocaust would be used to further a supremacist agenda defies all decency. Nor do the inversions end there. The exhibit repeats the catchy statistic which this renewed Jewish-focused Albanian campaign has been circulating for almost three years: Albania was the only European country to end up with more Jews after the war than it had at the beginning. Never mind that this was also the case with Spain, Sweden and Finland-all of which had vastly more Jews than Albania's 200-but note that the Albanian spin is careful to not mention Kosovo, whose independence Albanians are eager to secure, where Albanians helped round up 600 Jews, most of whom died at Bergen-Belsen. In other words, more Jews were rounded up in Kosovo than ever existed in Albania before the war.
There were Righteous among all the nations of Europe; more Germans saved Jews than did Albanians. At the other end of the spectrum, more Serbs saved Jews than did Albanians. But it apparently never occurred to Serbian saviors to come forward for credit or to flaunt their Jew-saves in the event that an expansionist rival would use its own Jew-saves as a weapon against them.
And so Jewish good will has been co-opted by a nationalist movement which in WWII formed the fascist Balli Kombetar organization-still active in Kosovo today. Similarly, the arm patch of the Albanian Nazi SS Division Skanderbeg, which shows the national flag of Albania, is worn today by the Kosovo Protection Corps. Jewish gratitude, at this sensitive time, to the Albanian Righteous is being used to help create a new state whose founders were partly trained by the son of the Nazi Luftwaffe general in charge of Hitler's 1941 bombing of Belgrade; a land where a "Hitler Diner" operates without much controversy; a land which is run by "former" KLA whose leadership and membership, as NY Times writer Chris Hedges wrote for Foreign Affairs Magazine in 1999:
splits down a bizarre ideological divide, with hints of fascism on one side and whiffs of communism on the other. The former faction is led by the sons and grandsons of rightist Albanian fighters - either the heirs of those who fought in the World War II fascist militias and the Skanderbeg volunteer SS division raised by the Nazis, or the descendants of the rightist Albanian kacak rebels who rose up against the Serbs 80 years ago. Although never much of a fighting force, the Skanderbeg division took part in the shameful roundup and deportation of the province's few hundred Jews during the Holocaust.
In the early 90s, Albanians helped to revive the Bosnian version of the SS Skanderbeg division, the SS Handzar:
Up to 6000 strong, the Handzar division glories in a fascist culture. They see themselves as the heirs of the SS Handzar division, formed by Bosnian Muslims in 1943 to fight for the Nazis. Their spiritual model was Mohammed Amin al-Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who sided with Hitler. According to U.N. officers, surprisingly few of those in charge of the Handzars in Fojnica seem to speak good Serbo-Croatian. "Many of them are Albanian, whether from Kosovo.or from Albania itself," [reveals a UN officer].
The name of the exhibit is BESA: A Code of Honor-Muslim Albanians who Rescued Jews during the Holocaust. The Yad Vashem page for the exhibit describes Besa thus: "The remarkable assistance afforded to the Jews was grounded in Besa, a code of honor, which still today serves as the highest ethical code in the country. Besa means literally 'to keep the promise.' One who acts according to Besa is someone who keeps his word, someone to whom one can trust one's life and the lives of one's family. Apparently, this code sprouted from the Muslim faith as interpreted by the Albanians."
The emphasis on the Muslimness of Albanians is heavy, in stark contrast to the de-emphasis on this fact when Jewish and Western support was being mobilized to beat down the Serbs on behalf of Albanians. What's missing from the definition of Besa is its most frequent application-a promise to not kill a person in the midst of a blood feud such as those that have been sweeping Albania and now Kosovo and Macedonia for the past several years in a resurgence of this ancient barbarism.
The Yad Vashem page also reads:
In 1934, Herman Bernstein, the United States Ambassador to Albania, wrote: "There is no trace of any discrimination against Jews in Albania, because Albania happens to be one of the rare lands in Europe today where religious prejudice and hate do not exist, even though Albanians themselves are divided into three faiths."
One supposes it's debatable whether pulling out by hand crosses from Serbian-Orthodox churches that harbored Albanians and Serbs alike during NATO's bombing, then burning them and urinating on them is religious, or racial, hatred, but according to Andy Wilcoxson, an American expert on the Milosevic trial: "On September 9, 1901, a British diplomatic cable sent to the Marquess of Lansdowne said: "Old Serbia [Kosovo] is still a restive region because of the Albanians' lawlessness, vengeance and racial hatred."
More than a century later, it would appear that little has changed.
While it's important to celebrate past acts of selflessness and righteousness by Albanians, one cannot dismiss what these people are doing now, which flies in the face of Yad Vashem's very mission. If Serbs were the "justifiable" target of Albanian animosity in 1999, why did the Jews, Roma, Gorani, Bosnians and Croats also have to be gone in order for the new "Kosova" to take seed? Perhaps because the animosity was a means to an end from the beginning?
But this is all apparently lost on the Jews involved in, or endorsing, the exhibit, which features the work of Colorado-based photographer Norman Gershman, a 75 year-old Wall Street veteran who recently described himself to Vail Daily as equal parts Jewish and Sufi, and who says a Muslim prayer in Arabic before a flight. Gershman's ongoing mission during this jihad has been to seek out Muslims throughout the world who saved Jews during WWII.
The Jewish Muslim Gershman is aware of the present Kosovo imbroglio, his position made clear when he describes Kosovo as "struggling" to gain independence from Serbia, and repeats one of the Albanian lobby's ubiquitous buzz phrases, recently also repeated by the Albanian ambassador to Israel in the pages of Jerusalem Post: "All Albanians saved Jews"--which of course omits the realities of WWII Kosovo. Gershman reveals that Elie Wiesel-who, in a moment of historical lucidity, in hindsight reversed himself a few years ago on supporting NATO's anti-humanitarian intervention in Kosovo-is backing the efforts of the foundation Gershman works through. The "Eye Contact Foundation" is headed by another Colorado Jew, Steve Kaufman, according to the Vail Daily, which adds that this project "already has spawned a book and a DVD that tell the stories of Albanian citizens. who sheltered and aided Jews fleeing from the Nazis in Germany," as well as a documentary film by an Emmy-winning production house. So this exhibit has been just an early stage of what we're in for.
If Yad Vashem had more historical savvy, it would have agreed to host the exhibit in, say, six months-once the hotly contested land grab has been resolved, whether by peaceful or violent means. Instead, it has effectively taken a position, one that turns history on its head as the museum inadvertently advances the end result: a return to Albania's Hitler-delineated borders (which included annexing of Kosovo to Albania) and the realization of Albania's agenda of a Greater Albania "under the same [flag] now being flourished in Kosovo," as a recent letter in the Financial Times pointed out. Armed with Yad Vashem's stamp of approval, the UN now proudly duplicates the gross historical error.
Like Elie Wiesel, John Ranz is a Holocaust survivor, and he has called what the West's historically shallow Jews helped do to Serbia on behalf of Albania-which until last week didn't allow Israeli airlines to operate commercial flights from its limits-our "greatest shame."